My dad sat down on the couch and seemed to sink right into it. “I’ll just wait here,” he said, “while you perform your ablutions.”
Ever since Chris had shown up months before, I had thought about my father’s depression as an errand that I must get around to. I didn’t think about it as a thing that was happening to him, pushing on his shoulders, pinning him to chairs.
“Do you want a tea, Dad?”
He looked at a months-old magazine with Leona Lewis on the cover.
“All right.”
I learned—later, of course—that my mother had insisted on celebrating my graduation day because the last of my father’s investments—a shopping complex in Killarney—had just gone bust. All of my parents’ money was in property and investments, and there were huge questions around what they were going to retire on.
I brought my father his tea and he spoke.
“You’ll be going abroad, I suppose.”
“Who told you that?”
“They all are,” he said. “The youngies always go.”
I thought about the three grand in our savings account and wondered if I should tell him about it. It might comfort him to know that someone had money.
“Just don’t get up the duff, or anything stupid.”
Despite everything, I laughed.
My mother and I went upstairs, and I put on the black wool dress she had brought from home, along with thick black tights and brogues. I looked like I was going to a funeral. She asked me how the job was going, and I told her that I had been fired again.
“Oh, never mind,” she said, determined to put everyone in high spirits. “I don’t think it’s good for you to be sitting down all day, anyway.”
We knew parking would be a nightmare so we walked to the college, which only added to the odd funereal tone of the day. It felt like we were following a hearse, and I was still so weak from the miscarriage. I felt eighty years old.
It was easiest, when I was living with James, to congratulate myself on my self-sufficiency and the fact that I was not a burden to my struggling parents. While that might have been part true, it didn’t change the fact that I had done nothing to help them, either. My mother needed someone to talk to, my father needed someone to cheer him up. My brothers probably needed something, but their lives were too far away from mine to comprehend what that could be.
I said this to my mother, once. I apologised for being self-absorbed, for not asking more questions. It was years later, when she was sick, and although she did eventually get better it felt like a time for Big Truths. The statement startled her. “What could you have done?” she said. I told her that I could have been a better listener. She shook her head, and her reaction seemed to be: What on earth would I have talked to you for?
I stood next to my parents in the guest section, the rows and rows of empty seats in front of us, all awaiting graduates who had RSVP’d to the ceremony. It seemed like we waited for ever there, while various sets of parents and partners made polite chatter. I felt woozy, like my hands and feet were attached to my body with very loose string. “I’ve made a reservation at Isaacs,” my mum said. “Do you remember, we used to always go there, back when you were in school?”
It was the kind of reliably chic mid-priced place that was famous for its crab cakes, and it was right near my secondary school. My mum often had lunch with her friends there, back in the old days, and I would sometimes join her.
My dad was gazing at a couple a few rows ahead of us.
“What’s up, Dad?”
“I did his veneers,” he said. “About five years ago.”
“Ah.”
My mother smiled, happy he had said something. The music started up, and the faculty began to walk in.
I had never been to a graduation ceremony before, and I haven’t been to one since. It had not occurred to me that it’s a big day for the faculty as well as for the students, and that they are usually in attendance.
There, cloaked in red robes and looking like a wizard, was Dr. Fred Byrne.
I gripped the side of my chair, and my bones began to vibrate. Everyone in the room stood up. I was the only one who remained seated. “Rachel,” my mum prodded. “Stand.”
I stood. My teeth clenched, a straight line going from my molars to my ears. Dr. Byrne looked perfectly relaxed, smiling widely as he took his seat behind the podium with the other members of the faculty. I recognised Dr. Sheehan, who had taught me about film noir and German expressionist painting.
Two thousand euro, and you’ll never see me, or hear about this, ever again.
Was I breaking my promise by being here? It had never occurred to me, until that moment, to give back the money. The money was specifically for the termination, and when it turned out that I didn’t need one, I thought of it as hush money. Money for what I had gone through. Money for the lie I had unwillingly taken part in. Seeing Dr. Byrne there made me feel like a fugitive. Like I should go to the cash machine, and slam the two grand into his fists.
The graduates entered in their black gowns and green bibs. The course had been too huge for me to recognise everyone, but I knew faces. People I had done tutorials with, borrowed pens from, given my notes to. They were part of the same moving amoeba, and I was sitting in a black wool dress with my parents at the back of the room. In a way, it was perfect. It was utterly in keeping with my university career. I felt lonely and beady-eyed and like life was a place that happened somewhere else.
The head of the department welcomed us to the ceremony in Irish, then in English, and spoke English for the rest of the service. It fell past me, like scenery outside a car window. All I could think about was the fact that I was in the same room as Dr. Byrne, who I had sworn to keep away from for the rest of my life.
Eventually, the graduates were told to turn around, and to give their families and loved ones a round of applause for supporting them in their education. They turned and clapped, their smiles wide, happy to be the centre of attention and to magnanimously give that attention away. A few of my classmates’ gazes fell on me, and I saw some confused expressions, like they couldn’t quite remember where they knew me from.
The scroll giving started. It went on for an hour, and I could see the boredom snatching at my parents. My mother looked as if she had realised this was a bad idea. We felt like charity cases, rejects from a world we had once occupied so easily. I held both of their hands. It was a terrible time, abysmal in every way, but I also felt very close to them. Like the three of us were on the same team, both as a family and as individuals. I never felt that way about my parents again, even on my wedding day.
Finally, when it felt like it had gone on for ever, when the bright beam of sunshine through the long windows had burned us all, when the department head was getting hoarse from name-calling, Rachel Murray was called. I shuffled out of my seat, past the confused, seated parents, and went to collect my scroll.
As I walked up the aisle, I couldn’t help but find Dr. Byrne. His face filled with panic and confusion. He must, on some level, have expected to see me there. But not like that: apart from everyone, and not even wearing the gown.
If there had been nothing amiss with my university career, if I really was just a student who hadn’t done the necessary admin to attend graduation and who had found a way to go anyway, I’m sure the whole room would have felt it. Everyone would have instinctively understood or assumed I was someone who had been sick, or in absentia, or had some other equally plausible and fine reason to be treated differently.